Using the Scanner

How the opportunity scanner ranks thousands of cross-exchange pairs, what every column means, and how to go from a promising row to a trading card.

Last updated: June 2026

What the scanner actually does

Roughly every five minutes, the scanner replays the last eight hours of real best-bid/best-ask history for every coin on every pair of supported exchanges and backtests the same dual-threshold strategy your trading cards run: open when the spread exceeds a threshold, close when it reverts. Each row in the table is the result of that simulation — estimated profit, number of cycles, and the thresholds that produced them, with trading fees already subtracted.

A backtest is a measurement, not a promise

Two things keep expectations honest. First, the freshness stamp: the table shows when the last scan ran and warns when results are older than 15 minutes. Second, a backtest is a measurement of the recent past, not a promise — it uses top-of-book prices, so your execution at real size will differ. The scanner narrows thousands of pairs down to a shortlist; the verification is yours.

Four tabs, four strategies

Arbitrage

Arbitrage — the classic: two-leg spread arbitrage on linear (USDT-margined) perpetuals. The default view and the strategy described in Spreads & Signals.

Inverse

Inverse — the same spread logic on coin-margined BASE-USD perpetuals, limited to the exchanges that list them. A separate market with its own dislocations; see Inverse Futures.

Funding

Funding — ranks cross-exchange funding-rate differentials for hold-style positions: short the leg that receives funding, long the leg that pays less. Covered in depth in Funding Rate Arbitrage.

Cash & Carry

Cash & Carry — spot long plus perp short on the same venue, collecting funding with zero price exposure. See Cash & Carry.

Reading a scanner row

Five columns turn a backtested pair into a decision.

Pair Route Spread 1 Signal 2 Funding 3
SOL/USDT
Bybit MEXC
Long · Short
+0.74%
Active
+0.012%
1 Net spread

The net edge the backtest captured after fees. The pulsing dot flags a pair active right now.

2 Signal strength

Taller bars mean steadier, more repeatable cycles — not one lucky spike.

3 Funding

Funding collected or paid while the legs are held — a bonus or a drag on each cycle.

Reading the columns

Est. Profit, Cycles, Delta, Thresholds

Est. Profit and Cycles are scoped to the selected time window (15m to 8h): estimated net profit, and how many open-close cycles the backtest completed in that window. Delta is the gross spread one cycle captures before fees, which is the open threshold plus the close threshold, so it equals the gap between the two numbers in the Thresholds column. Quick Start copies those thresholds onto the trading card.

Trend

Trend is acceleration: how the most recent hour compares to the 8-hour average. Values at 2.0 and above mark a pair that is heating up; below 0.5 means it is cooling off and the backtested profit may already be history.

Confidence

Confidence (0 to 100) is a composite of three things: how many cycles the backtest completed (40 points, full at 50), how far the per-cycle edge clears the fees (30 points, full at 3×), and the 24h turnover of the thinner leg (30 points, full at $20M). Click the badge for the breakdown. A third of it is liquidity rather than backtest quality, so treat anything below 50 as a yellow flag whatever the profit column says, and never read a high score as proof the spread is stable.

Vol A/B, Fees, ⚡

Vol A/B show each leg's 24h turnover, and thin exchanges move first and fill worst. Fees is the full round-trip cost of a cycle at standard taker rates: both exchanges, charged twice, since a cycle opens two legs and closes two. Your own VIP tier or rebates make it cheaper than shown. The ⚡ marker flags pairs where the simulation closed a cycle within the last 30 minutes: alive right now, not just somewhere within the window.

Filters and time windows

The window selector (30m / 1h / 2h / 4h / 8h) rescopes the profit and cycle columns, the sorting and the filters in one click. Short windows surface what is hot right now; the 8h window favors steady all-day oscillators. Comparing a pair across windows is itself a signal: profitable everywhere = robust; profitable only at 30m = chasing a spike.

The filter panel narrows the universe: restrict to specific exchanges (or anchor on one), require minimum 24h volume, minimum confidence, minimum profit and cycle counts per window (all conditions combine with AND), hide big caps, search for a specific coin, or show only ⚡-active pairs.

A starter recipe

A practical starter recipe: your exchanges only, volume above $1M, confidence above 60, at least 2 cycles in the 1h window, sorted by 1h profit. It is conservative enough to filter noise and short enough to be actionable.

Check before you trade

  1. 1
    Open the spread chart

    Every row opens a spread chart: the real two-sided spread with the backtest's thresholds drawn in and simulated entries marked. Thirty seconds here answers the question that matters — does this spread oscillate around a level (tradeable), or did it jump once and flatline (not)? Understanding the Spread Chart decodes every element.

  2. 2
    Drill into funding

    Funding rows drill into a dedicated view: per-leg funding history, the cumulative differential over 7/30/180 days, an annualized estimate, and an income calculator that scales everything to your intended position size — with a countdown to the next settlement on each leg.

  3. 3
    Verify depth at YOUR size

    Finally, depth: the scanner measures top-of-book spreads, but your order walks the book. Verify there is enough resting liquidity at your size — the Depth Multiplier article explains how cards enforce this automatically at execution time.

Acting on a row

Quick Start creates a trading card straight from the row — symbol, exchanges and thresholds copied from the backtest, your defaults filling the rest. Pro users choose between classic two-leg and one-leg variants. The card never starts trading by itself; see Quick Start: Your First Trade for the full launch sequence.

Not ready to commit? Star the pair to keep it on your favorites list, or share the spread chart by link or straight to Telegram.

Never trade the top row because it is the top row

One habit beats all filters: never trade the top row just because it is the top row. The best candidates score well on profit and confidence and volume, and survive a look at the spread chart. Ten extra seconds of skepticism is the cheapest risk management you will ever buy.

Frequently asked questions

How fresh is the scanner data?

A full rescan of every pair runs roughly every five minutes over a rolling eight-hour history of real best-bid/ask quotes. The table shows the exact age of the current results and warns if they are older than 15 minutes.

What does the Confidence score mean?

A 0–100 rating of how stable and repeatable the backtested cycles were within the window. High values mean the spread oscillated consistently; low values usually mean the profit came from one or two spikes. Profit tells you how much; confidence tells you how believable.

Why did a top-ranked pair perform worse live than in the backtest?

The backtest uses top-of-book prices; live orders consume depth and pay slippage. Conditions also decay — a spread that cycled all morning can die at noon (watch the Trend column). And some apparent spreads are funding-interval artifacts between legs with different settlement schedules. The drilldown chart and depth check before entry filter out most of these.

Is the scanner available without a subscription?

The scanner is part of the platform and available once you register and connect exchanges. An active subscription is required for the part that makes money — running trading cards on your dedicated server.

Try Arbitron — find spreads across 20 exchanges

Real-time spread signals, automated execution, full PnL tracking. Free to sign up, invite-only access during beta.

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